Rural Housing, Real Benefits: Partnership supports villages in meeting local needs

Affordable housing provider Trent & Dove has partnered with Support Staffordshire to address common misconceptions surrounding rural housebuilding - and to highlight the community benefits it brings.

The benefits

Affordable rural housing delivers more than homes to suit everyone’s bank account. It offers economic value by creating jobs and supporting local businesses and services. It also helps families stay close to their communities, reinforcing support networks - something Trent & Dove sees as central to its mission: ‘Providing homes and services that enable people and communities to thrive.’

“It’s hard for families or older people to find suitable homes in some villages – rural house prices have risen nearly twice as fast as in urban areas over the last five years,” explains Paul Keats, Project Officer at Support Staffordshire. “Affordable rural housing helps younger generations stay close to family and allows older residents to remain in familiar surroundings.”

Tackling misconceptions

Trent & Dove, based in East Staffordshire, manages affordable housing across rural areas including Uttoxeter, Sudbury, Ashbourne, and Abbots Bromley. But delivering homes in these locations is challenging. Nationally, only 9% of rural development is affordable, compared to 17% in urban areas, according to a recent report ‘There’s a Will - Here’s the Way’ - produced by Trent & Dove and Rural Housing Solutions.

Some of this disparity can be magnified by the growing popularity of second homes which owners find more cost-effective to rent out for weekends – the beautiful countryside surroundings are a big draw for many tourists.

And misconceptions remain a key barrier. “People worry the homes won’t be for local residents, that they won’t blend into the community, or that affordable housing just means social rent,” explains Mr Keats. “But affordable housing includes a variety of tenures and types.”

There are also concerns about scale. “Communities hear about national housing targets and assume large-scale developments are coming to their village,” says Mr Keats. “But embracing the process now actually gives them more control over what happens.”

Tony Price, Trent & Dove’s Head of Programme, Innovation, Commercial Management & Sales, adds: “We often hear concerns about traffic, parking, or infrastructure like sewers. These issues are always considered in planning, and we work to mitigate them - and even improve local services.”

How this partnership works

“Their interaction starts right from the basics - looking at Rural Exception Sites, conducting Housing Need surveys, and explaining the importance of rural housing,” says Mr Price.

Through undertaking a housing needs assessment, the aim is to facilitate community involvement, gather stakeholder input, and develop strategies to address housing gaps and challenges, helping to identify specific local needs, inform policy, and guide resource allocation. These assessments typically include data on housing affordability, availability, demographic trends, and future housing projections, tailored to regional contexts.

Partnership outcomes

Sharing the same values as Trent & Dove to empower communities to be the best they can be, Support Staffordshire leads the partnership, working with local authorities and parish councils and engaging directly with communities delivering impartial and independent advice.

Parish councils particularly benefit from Support Staffordshire’s independent advice, especially through Housing Need surveys. “Councils value our neutrality,” says Mr Keats. “They know we have the community’s interests at heart.”

In fact, parish councils are now often the ones initiating contact. “Sometimes it’s after developers approach them, or they are worried about losing a local pub or shop as there is not enough affordable housing and people are forced to move away,” says Mr Price. “They realise housing needs to be part of the conversation.”

We want to help

Support Staffordshire plays a vital role in guiding communities. “We don’t want to be seen as a big developer pushing for four-bed houses for sale,” says Mr Keats. “We are responding to real, local needs - whether that is keeping a shop open or helping people stay in the village. Support Staffordshire helps communities see how to move forward.”

Supported by funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the partnership reflects the Government’s growing recognition of the acute shortage of affordable homes in rural areas and the positive economic benefit new homes generate.